What Amount of Money Can Be Made Through an App
reading time5 min. read

Expert Help.

Fast Results.

Augment Your Development Team

Let's Talk Request a consultation

What Amount of Money Can Be Made Through an App

Published datePublished: Aug 4, 2016 ViewsViews: 1381
Deepak Sinha

Deepak Sinha

CTO
Deepak is a hands-on Technology Leader with expertise in designing software solutions for various successful projects for multinationals. He has total experience of 15+ years and has worked on all the phases of application development and has good experience in open source and mobile technologies. He is passionate on new Technologies and has strong interest on Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence etc.
What Amount of Money Can Be Made Through an App
 

Apps are the rage of current times and most companies have now started investing in creating smartphone apps. Statistics show that 80% of the internet users now own smartphones. It is no wonder that many companies and entrepreneurs are trying to set up apps and capture a part of the market share. The question then arises is how much money can be made by an app?

Choosing App Platforms 
The first important decision that needs to be taken is regarding the platforms for which the app needs to be developed. This will have a great impact on the earning potential. The platforms chosen will affect how soon the organisation launching the app will be able to penetrate the market. How popular the platform is will also impact the earning potential from the app.
There are also some platforms that must be avoided because of their low market penetration ability and low earnings. These are Blackberry OS and Windows mobile. With regard to Blackberry, it has shown low market penetration activity and lower earnings. Its market share is also lowering due to the advent of newer and better equipped platforms. The other platform that should be avoided is Windows. Even with its strong backing from Microsoft, it lacks the ability to penetrate the market and has a low level of popularity among the mobile users.

Domination in the App Industry
The trends show that Google is the leader in the mobile market. Google has over 900 million users. The next in line is Apple, which has 600 million iOS devices being purchased. The third place belongs to Microsoft which has approximately 12 million Windows Phones sold.

What is earned by the Developers?
Let us now talk about what is being earned by the developers. The leader in this category is the Apple iOS platform. It has reported over a quarter of its developers earning over $5000 per month. Another leader in this regard is Android. Android has reported that 16% of its app developers have a turnaround of more than $500 per month. One point to note here is that the money is more evenly distributed among the developers using the Apple platform than the Android platform.

Earnings in the App World
Apps have taken over the mobile world. With such a high impact, high earnings are sure to follow. The estimated revenue on a worldwide scale is $25 billion in 2014 and the total global revenue is estimated to be $46 billion by 2016.
The highest earners are video game apps. Some examples of earnings of by video game apps are shown here:

App Revenue
Clash of Clans by Developer Supercell  $1,118,457 per day
Candy Crush by King Digital Entertainment $884,676 per day

The question that can arise is that most of these apps are free, so how do the developers earn. The answer is easy. They rely on the in-game purchases to create revenue.
There are other categories of apps that have shown substantial earnings. Good examples are:

iSteam: an app available for just $0.99

Joke app iFart: an app that showed earnings of over $50,000 per week in the first two weeks

Car Locator: an app that earned around $13,000 per month

Some important statistics to consider here are the revenue per download. Google has recorded that from 5 apps developed per developer, there were 60,000 downloads per app and the revenue per download was recorded as $0.019. Microsoft revealed that out of 3 apps per developer and 4,062 downloads per app, the revenue per download was $0.154. Apple tops this list with 5 apps per developer and 40,000 downloads per app. The revenue per download recorded is $1.
So what are the actual earnings of the developers’? This can be calculated by multiplying the average revenue per app by its average number of downloads. The statistics are:

Platform Average revenue per developer
Google  $2,222
Apple $21,276
Microsoft $6000

Apps and other Smart Devices
Lately, apps are seen to be adapted to smart devices apart from phones. These are Smart TVs, Video Game Consoles, and Smart Watches to name a few.
It has been seen that 34% of the internet users connect to Smart TVs. Some of the most popular and most accessed apps are Netflix and Hulu. Video Game Consoles like Xbox One, Playstation 4, and Wii U have app stores. There are some general apps like Netflix found here as well as some apps that are found exclusively on these Consoles. Examples of such apps are Spotify, BBC, and PS4. Smart Watches are newly launched but have shown great promise.

In conclusion, we can conclude that the app market is growing fast. There is an influx of apps in the market but trends have shown that there continues to exist a market for niche, novel, and innovative apps. While Apple iOS continues to be the most favored platform for developers, other platforms show promise. There are also several breakthroughs and new devices for apps that continue to develop and provide new avenues for developers.

To understand more about how you can monetize your apps, you may contact our app consulting company.

back to top